Cameron and the new oligarchs

By Mark Rusling

Last month, David Cameron announced what could be the most far-reaching change to public services in a hundred years. Potentially every public service could be privatised, with the exception of the armed forces and the judiciary. This is a shame – at least the prospect of McJudges and McGenerals would have been funny. The Tory proposals are certainly not.

Cameron’s plans create a presumption that public services “should be open to a range of providers competing to offer a better service” and that “the state will have to justify why it should ever operate a monopoly”. Cameron says that the “grip of state control will be released and power will be placed in people’s hands”. But his proposals won’t place the power in people’s hands – they will put the power in the hands of big business. He calls it a “transformation”, and he’s right. The whole notion of public services for all, but particularly those who are poorest and most vulnerable, is at stake.

In the 1990s, swathes of the Russian state were sold off to favoured individuals, creating the oligarchs. That is exactly what the Tories are doing, abetted by the Orange Bookers. The Tories’ new oligarchs will be behemoth private companies, like Serco.

I am not defending the Soviet state and I am certainly not someone who believes that all public services have to be provided by the state. If the private sector can provide a better and more equitable service (not just a cheaper one), it should do so. What matters is that the services are provided to all, and particularly to the vulnerable. However, Cameron’s plan envisages a situation where no public services are provided by the state – this is a totally different ballgame. The question is not: should the state provide all services? The question is: should the private sector provide all services? The answer to both is, categorically, no.

Services provided by the state are not always great (neither are those provided privately: have you visited a mobile phone shop recently?), but at least they aim to provide a universal service, concentrating on those who need it most. The theory of the private sector is, quite rightly, to make money – not to provide services to the poorest. I have nothing against Serco (they may do a very good job) but they are limited by what they are – a profit-seeking company. How can Cameron’s vision of public services provided exclusively by companies like Serco satisfy the needs of poorer communities like my own in Walthamstow?

Companies looking to maximise shareholder value will just not see ‘shareholder value’ in the people who visit my councillor’s surgery. The lady last week with a mental illness, living in a damp, mouse-infested one-room flat with her boyfriend and three children does not represent shareholder value – she represents a drain on profits. Now, the state doesn’t always serve the poorest as it should. But a private company established to make money for shareholders will not – cannot – see looking after people like her as being their purpose in life, as the best public services do.

Cameron has fallen into a position which is the mirror opposite of the Socialist Workers Party. Where the SWP ideologically wants the state to provide all public services, Cameron ideologically wants the private sector to provide all public services. Both are wrong. Most people are pragmatic. They do not care about who provides their services – they just want them provided well, and to everybody who needs them. People don’t care that Cameron hates the state, but they do care that his ideology will lead to services which cannot possibly respond to those who need them most.

Labour’s battle is not over who provides the services, but whom the services are provided for. The oligarchs care more for the have-yachts than the have-nots and Cameron’s plan risks doing the same.

Mark Rusling is a Labour and Co-Operative Councillor in the London Borough of Waltham Forest.